


The Peter Stop Touching My Stuff Protocol

by AmbienceLight



Series: You Can't Deny What You Can Clearly See [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23396353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbienceLight/pseuds/AmbienceLight
Summary: The sound of Peter's phone vibrating jolted Ned from sleep. The phone sat on the bed next to him and he chucked it across the room to where Peter sat slumped over the desk, trusting Peter's spider-sense and enhanced reflexes to let him catch it. Unfortunately, Peter was also asleep and all his powers did was wake him up before the phone hit his skull.
Relationships: Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: You Can't Deny What You Can Clearly See [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682917
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	The Peter Stop Touching My Stuff Protocol

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first ever fic and it's mostly an experiment. We'll see if I ever want to finish it, but here's chapter one. This takes place after Homecoming and is very much NOT infinity war/endgame compliant.

The sound of Peter's phone vibrating jolted Ned from sleep. The phone sat on the bed next to him and he chucked it across the room to where Peter sat slumped over the desk, trusting Peter's spider-sense and enhanced reflexes to let him catch it. 

Unfortunately, Peter was also asleep and all his powers did was wake him up  _ before _ the phone hit his skull. 

He grunted and struggled to dislodge the phone from where it had gotten stuck down the back of his shirt, making an odd strangled noise when it vibrated again. He succeeded in removing it and glanced at the screen: Unknown Caller. Great, they hadn’t even been woken up for a good reason. 

Peter looked over at where Ned sat on the bed, and at the Spider-man Suit draped over him like a blanket. Peter had invited Ned over to look at the suit’s programming yesterday. After all the disasters that had culminated on the night of the Homecoming dance, Ned had been unwilling to alter anything again, but he  _ had _ lept at the chance to study Mr. Stark's work more thoroughly.

Peter’s phone buzzed again, it was the same number as before. He ignored it and checked the clock. 

“We’ve been asleep for six hours! May’ll be home any minute.” He yelped. His aunt had worked a double shift the night before, and since she hadn’t been around to make them go to bed, their evening of playing around with the suit had become an all-nighter.

Ned started to collect his scattered belongings. Peter was unsure how most of them had ended up where they now were, but he got up to help.

“The coding in the suit is really cool Peter. Thanks for letting me check it out.” Ned said as Peter walked him to the door.

“No problem. It all looked good right? Nothing seemed . . . off to you?” Peter Interrogated.

“It all looked fine. Why, are you having issues with it? If you are, you should tell Mr. Stark, not me.”

“No, no, there aren’t any issues I just wanted to be sure. Bye Ned.” Peter responded, quickly shutting the door after his friend. 

There was no one other than Tony Stark himself that Peter would trust more with a computer. If Ned thought that nothing looked wrong, then he hadn’t noticed Peter's little additions.  _ Ned would have noticed if they didn’t look right. _ He told himself.  _ They’ll work, it’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about. _

+==O==+

Tony wasn’t sure how the kid had convinced himself that hacking into the suit  _ again _ was a good idea. Maybe his current situation would be enough to convince him not to mess around with things he didn’t understand. 

Somehow the boy had gotten himself stuck to the bottom of a helicopter with a totally non-functioning suit --- for the last hour.

The billionaire didn’t bother with the helicopter, he came up underneath it and the exhausted boy practically fell into the arms of his suit. Now Tony hesitated, the only place he could really take the boy was to The Tower, but with the sale still pending he wasn’t sure he should. He had to take the kid  _ somewhere _ though, he was cold as ice and shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

“FRI warm up the penthouse.” For the second time that night, he was glad he hadn’t gotten around to taking the AI out of the tower. She had been the one to spot Spider-Man clinging to the bottom of the aforementioned helicopter, as it flew over his tower. 

With the suit off-line the tracker hadn’t done much good.  _ I'll have to fix that later _ . He thought as he carried the quivering bundle towards the former Avengers Tower.

+==O==+

Peter sat on the floor of the empty room trying not to look cold or guilty. He wasn’t succeeding on either count.

“You’re still cold, really? It’s like ninety degrees in here.”

“S-s-sorry M-Mr. Stark. ‘m just cold a lot lately?”

“It would appear that Mr. Parker no longer has the ability to thermoregulate.” FRIDAY added. Rather  _ un _ helpfully in Peter’s opinion.

“We got any blankets up here FRI?”

“The tower is almost entirely empty sir and the penthouse was the first floor cleaned out. There may be some on the lower floors but I do not believe so.”

“I’m f-fine Mr. Stark really I --” Peter began but he was cut off.

“What about my lab? I never cleaned that out, I know there are blankets in there.”

“Miss Potts removed all of the ‘unnecessary junk’ from your lab after her deadline passed and the lab was still not packed up.”

Mr. Stark threw his hands up in the air “Who throws out a perfectly good blanket?”

“Tony, those blankets were disgusting rags. In fact, I’m not even sure they were blankets, and not just bits of thread held together by sheer willpower.” 

Peter had heard Miss Potts approaching but rather than telling Mr. Stark, he had decided to quietly replace his mask. He wasn’t worried about protecting his identity from her, but most people didn’t react well to finding out that he was a teenager. 

Miss Potts smiled at him, “That's really not necessary Peter dear, Tony’s not allowed to keep secrets from me.”

Peter couldn’t take the mask off though, he was too preoccupied by the fact that  _ Pepper Potts _ knew his name!

“It’s broiling in here! Could you turn it down a little FRIDAY?” She asked.

“I’m sorry Miss Potts but Mr. Parker’s core temperature remains below a healthy range. I believe it would be for the best to keep the thermostat where it is.”

“That’s okay FRIDAY,” Peter assured, trying not to let his teeth chatter. “I’m good, really.”

Pepper frowned at him, then said she’d be back and departed leaving an awkward silence in her wake. 

Mr. Stark spoke up first. “So kid, want to explain what happened to my suit?”

Peter really didn’t, but it was too late for that now.

“I just,” He swallowed. Why had he ever thought he was smart enough to mess around with  _ Tony Stark’s  _ work, Peter wasn’t even qualified to run a Google search. “Thought I could improve it?” 

“Kid, if you have an idea, that’s fine, call me,  _ you’re _ the one in that suit. I won’t get mad if you need it altered somehow.”

“I didn’t want to bother you sir, it was just a dumb idea I had. Besides,” He paused uncertainly before adding: “I  _ can’t _ call you, I don’t have your number.”

“Then call Happy! That’s what he’s there for.”

“Happy never answers!” Peter was starting to feel like he was going to cry.  _ Don’t you dare cry, not in front of him. _ Peter was way too tired for this.

“You could’ve at least answered when I called you kid.”

Now Peter was confused, when had he called?

“This afternoon when the suit finally alerted me that you’d been playing around with it all night.”

Peter blushed he had  _ not _ meant to say that out loud. 

He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked his calls. When he saw it, he read off the unknown number that had awoken them that day, and Mr. Stark confirmed it was his. 

Peter showed the label to him and muttered guiltily. “Sorry sir, it’s just that, I don't answer if I don’t recognize the number.”

+==O==+

Pepper chose that moment to return carrying a bundle of fabric that she thrust at the teen. “Go change Peter.” 

He took it hesitantly, “Maybe I could just go home now Miss Potts?”

“Not a chance your lips are still purple and it’s late.” She added another order: “The bathroom’s just down that hall, why don’t you take a quick shower to help you warm up, and then, Tony will drive you home.”

As Tony shelved his indignation at being volunteered as a chauffeur he added: “Besides I’ve got to fix the damage you did to my suit, so you can't swing back to Queens, and even  _ I’m _ not irresponsible enough to let a fifteen-year-old walk home alone at two in the morning.”

The boy could hardly dispute that, so he set off down the hallway grumbling something about it being barely past midnight.

Pepper turned to Tony looking confused. “He damaged your suit?”

“Yeah. He decided it would be fun to play with the multi-million dollar AI I so generously  _ didn’t _ disable after the last time he screwed with my stuff.”

“Ohhh, so you meant  _ his _ suit.”

Tony scoffed. “When he knows how to rebuild it by himself, I’ll call it his suit. Until then it’s just a loan.”

“You might want to be careful saying things like that, he’s a pretty smart kid. Maybe even smarter than you were at his age.” Pepper hummed.

Tony didn’t give her the satisfaction of a response. So she continued, “If you’re going to be fixing  _ his _ suit maybe you should ask him along to help?”

“I am not going to drag him all the way down to the compound--”

“So don’t. I told you from the beginning I wasn’t so sure about selling the tower and--”

“Little late for that Pep.”

“ _ And, _ our buyers have decided to back out. Apparently, there was a concern raised about maintenance on the arc reactor. What to do if it got damaged, they decided they don’t want to be reliant on us for repairs.”

This was a serious setback. Tony wished there was a couch or a chair to flop onto. “What can we do? Anyone else will come to that same conclusion.”

“If we re-relocate SI’s headquarters here we might be able to save face a little, and the new location hasn’t been ideal anyway.”

“Is that really our best option?”

“Well, it would certainly make it easier for you to keep an eye on Peter.” She jabbed.

They had begun to go over their options for the tower, but they didn’t get very far when Peter returned. He was wearing a pair of Tony’s old worn-out work jeans and an MIT sweatshirt that he suspected Pepper had intended to steal for herself. 

The CEO looked Peter over, “It all fits okay? Good. I’m just glad I had them. It's a good thing they haven’t gotten to the boxes from my office yet, and that Tony doesn’t know how to clean up after himself.”

The boy handed Tony a neatly folded Spider-Man suit. Tony was certain that the precise folds were far better treatment than his suit usually received from the teen.

“Come on kid, let’s get you home before you break your curfew.”

+==O==+

Peter was certain he had misheard. There was no way Mr. Stark had  _ actually _ just said that. 

“Look kid if you’re gonna break my suit you had better be prepared to help fix it.” Peter nodded, struggling to breathe, was he seriously being invited to help  _ Tony Stark, his _ childhood hero (and if he was being honest, teenhood hero too) in his lab. 

Mr. Stark was still talking, and Peter had totally missed what was just said.

“Um, sorry sir what was that?”

“You falling asleep or something kid? I  _ said _ talk to your aunt and if she’s okay with it Happy will pick you up from school on Thursday. You get all that this time?”

“Yes sir, I-I will sir, thank you so much I--”

“Great, sounds like a plan, see you Thursday.”

It was a clear dismissal, so Peter climbed out of the car. It had been parked at the curb outside his apartment building while they talked. 

He turned, too late to stop the black Audi from pulling off down the street calling: “Wait, Mr. Stark what about the . . . clothes.” He sighed. _ Oh well, I’m not giving them back now. This sweatshirt is  _ very  _ comfortable. Ned’s gonna be so jealous, I wonder if he’ll even believe me that it belonged to Mr. Stark. I know no one else would. _

**Author's Note:**

> My objective with this fic was to write something that could smoothly transition someone from the cannon MCU into the chaos that is our world so Peter and Tony's relationship won't be very developed at first. I've always thought that the version of them that exists at the end of HoCo would need a little push to start bonding.


End file.
